“Good morning, Inquisitor”, a man holding a cup of a steaming beverage approached Bernard.

“Good morning to you too, Meister Eckhart”, he bowed. “Although ‘morning’ doesn’t seem to mean much in these realms”.

“You know, I feared we would exchange those greetings somewhere in France, under less pleasant circumstances”, Eckhart laughed. “Fortunately, I managed to die before the Inquisition managed to find something on me”.

“From what I heard, it was mostly political nonsense and very far removed from the actual heresy I had to deal with”, Bernard gestured apologetically. “What was it even, some uneducated cleric not understanding Scripture well enough, and coming after you in consternation when they saw you quote it?”

“Something very much along those lines, yes”, Eckhart nodded. “The problem with being a theologian is that every semi-literate dunce thinks he’s one, as well. Especially the Bishops and Cardinals”, he giggled. “May God be my witness, some of them don’t look like they have actually read the Bible since they left the seminary”.

“So, how does your theology survive this place?”, Bernard pointed around them. “Mine lies in ruins somewhere in the reception room”, he laughed.

“Mine is keeping yours company”, Eckhard snickered. “Along with, I suspect, everybody else’s”.

“Oh, they fared quite well, I hear”, Bernard pointed at the far end of the orchard, where the Buddhists were teaching. “The Christian theologians are mostly recovering from shock. The Muslim theologians are looking for their promised virgins. The Hindu theologians can’t agree on what the word ‘Hindu’ even means”, he smiled. “Who was your Judge?”

“Lord Buddha. Now, that was a shock”, Eckhart grinned. “I expected things on the higher planes to simplify; essentially, God turns out to be everything, other things turn out to be a mirage that vanishes. Not exactly how it works in reality, as I found out”.

“I met his holy wife, Lady Zina. My expectation was that I would be punished for theological error, the way I punished others; that would have been fair, for Christ said we shall be measured by the same measure we use on others. Imagine my surprise when she just shrugged all that off, and focused on my true intent, and mostly just explained things. I would say I fell in love with her by the end of it, but I wouldn’t want her husband to take offence”, he smiled.

“Nobody here cares much for theology, in a sense that it matters much what ideas we use to describe things that are true. But falsehoods and deceit are completely absent. Everybody is straightforward: they look at what is true and they say it as they see it. It is very refreshing after Avignon”, Echkart sighed.

“I still haven’t met Magdalena, Christ’s wife. I hear she spends all of her time with Christ’s parents, meditating, as their consciousness is so vast, she finds the experience addictive”.

“I can’t even imagine what that must feel like, but I don’t blame her. I would spend all of my time around Christ, but I don’t want to annoy him”, Eckhart mused. “But it’s the differences between the Gods that I find stunning. Buddha, for instance, is completely different from someone like Karuna, or, for that matter, Augustine. But they feel like different ways to perceive God. The Greeks expected things to get simpler and yet more powerful as you go up in the heavenly realms, and we took that expectation from them. They certainly grow more powerful, I’ll give them that. But it is the diversity of perfections that stuns me. I could look at them whole day and never get tired. I always expected there to be only one way to be God, and I would try to see all sorts of perfections in one person, but the thing is, most of those perfections sort of negate each other. It’s like carriages – it is either fast, or it fits many people. You can’t have it both at the same time. An ox is strong, but a horse is fast, and a swan flies to great distances. The Gods seem to be like that – split into dozens of different perfect combinations of qualities, and when you see one, you can’t imagine anything being better, and then you see their brother or sister and you see a different perfection. I tell you, I could go on about this until the sun goes down, and since here it apparently never does, that would be a long time indeed”, he snickered.

“Something seems to be going on”, Bernard was suddenly serious. “The number of people here seems to be increasing. And by quite a lot, from what I can gather”.

“Are they dying suddenly in great numbers?”, Eckhard scratched his neck. “This can’t be good”.

“Lady Zina!”, Bernard Gui stood up and bowed to the woman approaching them. “What’s wrong?”, he looked at her in alarm, as she looked weary and exhausted.

“Bernard, it’s nice to see you again. And you must be Meister Eckhart?”, she curtsied and smiled weakly, as the other man bowed.

“A great plague has struck Europe; the same if not worse than the one under Justinian, that ended the ancient world. I suspect the number of holy people in Europe recently was too great for Satan to bear, and he kneed the chess board again”, she shrugged.

“You must be flooded by the recently deceased”, Bernard observed the signs of mental exhaustion on the Goddess. “Can we help you in any way?”

“Thank you for the offer”, she smiled. “I have multiple legions of angels assisting already, and they are all busy. I’m afraid I overestimated my abilities and didn’t ask for help until very late in this deluge of souls, which is why I now had to take my leave and recover. Meister Eckhart, please, assist and guide the newcomers to the best of your abilities, because they will need instruction. Bernard, I must ask you to join me in the war room. You have extensive experience with the Cathari, and I’m afraid Satan is going to make his next move along those lines soon. If I am to judge by what happened the last time I had such a plague on my watch, this is likely going to be the end of Christian Europe”.